We've covered before how it's worth taking certain polls for the 2024 presidential election with a grain of salt, including last month’s Franklin & Marshall poll showing President Joe Biden leading former and potentially future President Donald Trump by +10 in his home state of Pennsylvania. It now looks like the polls could be going in the other direction, including when it comes to Trump's lead in Michigan.
To be sure, Trump does have a lead in Michigan, which he narrowly won in 2016, though it went back to supporting the Democratic nominee in 2020, helping Biden to ultimately emerge victorious. Trump won by 0.2 percent in 2016, while Biden won in 2020 by 2.8 percent in 2020. By winning the Wolverine State in 2016, and the possibility, likelihood even, that Trump will do so again is no insignificant feat. Other than 2016, Michigan has gone for the Democrat every presidential election since 1992.
RealClearPolling has Trump up by +1.2 over Biden in Michigan, while FiveThirtyEight similarly shows the presumptive Republican nominee up by +1.3.
Neither of those aggregators include a Kaplan Strategies poll, where Trump enjoys 51 percent support in Michigan, compared to Biden's 36 percent, for a lead of a whopping +15.
The poll also tellingly shows Trump up +10 in Wisconsin, +5 in Pennsylvania, and +4 in Arizona. All were states that the former president won in 2016 but went on to lose in 2020.
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WISCONSIN
— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) May 2, 2024
Trump 48% (+10)
Biden 38%
.
MICHIGAN
Trump 51% (+15)
Biden 36%
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PENNSYLVANIA
Trump 46% (+5)
Biden 41%
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ARIZONA
Trump 47%
Biden 43%
Kaplan Strategies, RV, 4/20-21https://t.co/TP4V3b5DWF
The poll was conducted April 20-21 with 874 registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points in Arizona, 804 registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent in Michigan, 802 registered voters with a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points in Pennsylvania, and 802 registered voters for a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent in Wisconsin.
However, the poll doesn't look to be too far off in all of the states. For instance, RealClearPolling has Trump up by +5.0 in Arizona, while FiveThirtyEight shows him with a lead of +3.2.
In Pennsylvania, Trump is leading by +1.0 according to RealClearPolling, while his lead is at +1.8 per FiveThirtyEight. RealClearPolling has Trump up with a lead of +1.8 over Biden in Wisconsin, with FiveThirtyEight putting that lead at +2.6.
In covering the poll on Thursday morning, Newsweek noted, "Polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight ranks Kaplan Strategies 82nd in its list of pollsters by historical track record and methodological transparency. It gives it a poll score of -0/9."
The Newsweek piece not only downplays the Kaplan Strategies poll, but Trump's chances in Michigan, though that doesn't mean the state of the race isn't so favorable to Biden there.
A recent CBS News poll that we covered earlier this week shows Biden leading Trump by +2 in the state, 51-49 percent, though the poll was hardly good news for the deeply unpopular incumbent president. Another poll on key battleground states, from The Hill/Emerson, shows Trump up +1, 45-44 percent.
The Newsweek piece mentions a Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll from late last month, where much was made about how Biden leads Trump in Michigan by +2, with 47-45 percent support. Biden gained support since the same poll was conducted the month before, where Trump and Biden were tied at 45 percent each. At least Trump didn't lose support, though.
The election will certainly be close and competitive, including and especially in these must win battleground states.
Whenever Michigan comes up, it's crucial to point Democrats are in disarray there. Both Biden and Trump are the presumptive nominees for their political parties, having earned enough delegates on March 5. While Biden won Michigan's Democratic Primary in late February, 101,000 voters still went "uncommitted" over what support the president has dared to show Israel so far. It was a movement that Rep. Rashida Tlaib, whose district includes Dearborn, Michigan, supports. It was in Dearborn where early last month chants of "death to America" and "death to Israel" were heard, though the administration was slow to condemn them. Tlaib herself refused to talk to Fox News when asked about the chants.
Biden and his administration overall have been increasingly trying to make this a "both sides" issue, with the president finally on Thursday addressing the pro-Hamas and antisemitic protests going on at college campuses across the country. Not only were his remarks delayed, but they were still lacking.
'Not Peaceful': Biden Breaks Silence on Pro-Terrorist Student Unrest
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 2, 2024
https://t.co/YYMyk2ftg4
